Monday

This time last year I set a goal of 2000 miles, either walking or biking, to beat the 1500 miles I did in 2017.

Oy.

Not only did I not hit 2000, I didn't even hit the 1500 I'd managed last year. The big difference was the lack of 3 Day training; if I'd done that, I'd likely have hit 1500, maybe a little more.

Now, I registered for the 2019 3 Day, but I honestly don't think I'll do it. Every time I get excited about it I go back and read what I'd written about the 2017--I was sure then that was my last one, for pretty good reasons.

So we might look for something else, another charity to jump into, one that doesn't culminate in 60 miles on foot over 3 days...and doesn't have such a high minimum. It's one thing to raise $2300 for one walker; with two, that minimum feels impossible and I don't think we could do it again. And I know my body won't hold up without some medicinal intervention, and I hate the idea.

My gut says to do a bike event; I could easily do the 60 miles over 3 days on the bike. I could do 100. I enjoy riding a hell of a lot more than walking. So...maybe.

Still, no matter what we decide as our big charity thing for 2019 (I'm still doing St. Baldrick's...gotta do that one) I'm setting another 2000 mile goal, and hopefully paying more attention to where I am every month. That might have been part of my failure to hit 2k--I didn't keep an eye on my mileage, so I didn't know when to kick it up a notch.

Other than that...no resolutions. There are things I want to get done, but those aren't things I consider to be resolutions. Just stuff that needs to get done or just happen. Eat better, be more active, purge all the accumulated crap around here that doesn't get used or doesn't make sense. Tear down the patio cover and get a new one.

If I win the lottery, we're totally renovating the bathrooms and getting new flooring. And a pool. Maybe skylights. The kids will get whatever they want for their house.

I should go out and buy a lottery ticket, eh?

Oh, and when I do win, I'm also opening Whispers, my bookstore/cafe/writer's haven, where anyone can come in and use a table, get something to eat or drink, and study/read/write/work...but they have to be quiet.

And there might be a bar attached. Maybe call it The Drunken Scribe, and anyone who lands a publishing contract gets free shots of Fireball.

Okay, so maybe my resolution for 2019 is to win the freaking lottery, because I have IDEAS, people.

Tuesday

Friday

The Indie Pub Panel is approaching, as I may have mentioned before; it's a small thing compared to most professional conferences, rarely more than 50 in attendance, and when I last checked only 12 people had signed up. I'm pretty sure there are more now (it's being held at Disneyland...they're gonna go just for the room discounts) but the first person to sign up is the first person who always signs up as soon as the dates are set.

Now, the last time I was there, said person instigated a bar fight with homophobic slurs and an implied threat, IIRC (I missed it. Dammit.) She should have been banned then, but money is money and she has money and supports the online group and has, honestly, kept it afloat. She's tolerated at best, when she asks for critiques of her work people do their best to be fair, but frankly--and if she sees this, oh well--she's not a nice person.

She's also very, very afraid of me.

I am everything she's internalized as being Very Very Scary. I have multiple, visible tattoos. Often I have pink hair. I've spoken about owning and riding motorcycles. I fit quite nicely into her neat little Box of Stereotypes, and she's admitted to other members of the forum that she's afraid to be alone in a room with me.

So of course, I was asked to front two panels: one on cover creation, and one on formatting print books using InDesign. She signed up before that tidbit was announced, and I was curious what would happen when she found out.

She found out.

This will be the first year since the beginning of the Indie Pub Panel that she does not attend. At all. Because of me.

That, boys and girls, is how badass I am.

Stop laughing.

Here's the real kicker. I'm not presenting those panels, after all. If she had waited just 3 days longer to withdraw, she would have learned that I wasn't comfortable with the cost being charged for what is, essentially, basic information easily available online, and instead promised to host an online Q&A for free. It worked out for the IPP overall, because it frees up a few hours for a trad-house editor who jumped in at the last minute to host an informal round-table with writers in the group.

[Why Thump, you were fired, weren't you? Tsk. No. I withdrew before they landed the editor. Swearsies. But I guarantee that's what my biggest superfan will try to tell everyone once she finds out.]

Gotta admit, I am impressed with the structure of the 2019 IPP. As promised, there's a dress code--no more shorts and t-shirts in anticipation of bugging out for the parks--and there are fees associated with each panel to stop people from bailing out and playing instead. It won't stop anyone from ditching, but they'll essentially be paying 2-3 times as much as they would have for that park admission.

Okay, not too bad. Out of 30 days, I think I missed blogging on 4 of them. Given the reason, I'll call my failure to get something up every day a success anyway...even if most of it was talking about my cat.

I really did think he was going to die.

Today, for the first time in over a week, he ate his lunch, went to the back of the house, and started yowling. It's one of his quirks and we tend to find amusing even though we can't figure out why he does it, but the Spouse Thingy realized that he wasn't doing it at all, and we missed it.

Today when Max started up, Spouse Thingy came from the back room, excited, because the cat was on the bed, talking to Bast knows who, like he usually does after eating.

I don't know whether I'll get up in the middle of the night to feed him tonight. He won't need it, but he'll want it. But I will leave the door open, and if he's good and quiet, he can sleep with me.

Until he plops down on my face, anyway.

In other news...while t felt like I got zero work done last week, I managed to finish NaNoWriMo with 90,000+ words. A good 20,000 of those will get edited out, and the book isn't nearly toward the end of the vomit draft.

In other other news, the cats are happy because the Christmas trees are up. Buddah has the big one to lounge under and Max has his Whovimas tree, and they both can drive us nuts chewing on the branches and batting at ornaments. The living room looks like Christmas threw up in here, but we might not even get to the outside. It rained this week while the Spouse Thingy was off--significant rain--and it's supposed to rain while he's off next week. Since there are no kids on the court now, I don't really care if we decorate outside.

I'll miss the inflatable dragon, but still...

Probably not going to shoot for NaDecBlogMo, but I am still going to make more of an effort to post here. I'm just a little too verbose to keep it all on Facebook.

Thursday

He's lost weight and even at 12.5 pounds, picking him up feels like lifting a kitten. According to the vet, he's lost a lot of muscle mass, but he's old, it's not unexpected.

The main thing is...he's eating. He's still getting me up between 3-5 for food, which might be the new normal even though I really hope it isn't. Up until this morning I've been tired enough to get back to sleep after feeding him, but he woke me at 2:45 and it's nearly 6:00 and I'm still awake.

The downside to the return of his appetite is that he's hungry every three hours or so and until I'm positive he's over the hump, I'm not comfortable letting him go over that without feeding him, so I'm kinda stuck with being close to home. That's not really a problem right now--we can get errands done pretty quick, even if we have to go into Vacaville--but it might be an issue in a week or so when I have plans near Sacramento with friends. I'll be gone all day and the Spouse Thingy will be asleep.

So, we'll see. By then he might be fine with getting fed a full can just before I leave the house and then getting another one when the Spouse Thingy gets up.

And apparently we're back to this: sitting on the arm of my chair, staring intently, trying to convince me to set the computer aside so that my lap is available for lounging purposes.

Not this time, furball.

I have comics to read, FARK and Reddit to peruse, blogs to read, and 271 other things to do online.

Tuesday

Where we're at with this guy is probably "guardedly optimistic." He's eating close to 2/3 of normal, he's gotten some good sleep, and he's been allowed to sleep with me at night so I can check on him frequently.

He hasn't been allowed in the bedroom at night for a couple of years because, frankly, he's a pain in the ass at night and picks then to tell me all about his day. It became a matter of my health over humoring him, so I started closing the door at night...and he got over it quickly.

But since last Wednesday night, the door's been open, and he has free access to me. He did the whole meatloaf-cat thing for two nights, not really sleeping but not bugging me, either. Friday night, after getting meds, he slept like a rock, right on top of me, barely moving.

But the last couple of nights he's treated his access to the bedroom like a pre-teen sleepover, moving all over the bed (and me, mainly) and last night he decided my head would make a fine bed. Monday morning he woke me at 3 am for food, and this morning it was 5:15, and he's eaten several times since.

The key now is to see if he keeps his appetite up through today and into tomorrow, because the appetite stimulant should be out of his system sometime today. We were able to get 4 more doses to give him at home if we need it, as well as nausea medication.

I am less worried about him suddenly dying now that I was 5 days ago, but I'm not entirely convinced he's okay. My gut says this is the start of something chronic, which scared the crap out of me until a couple friends with cats Max's age and who have the same medical issues weighed in, and they're managing it just fine. It might mean doing what I said I never would--putting him through anything that stresses him--but I'll weigh the benefit of the stress over the good it will do him before actually doing anything.

Max is that unique creature--the furball that can easily be said to be The One. I've loved all the pets I've had before, probably to an outsider's idea of extreme, and we've done everything we could for them, but Max is the one that's going to hurt the most when he goes. I was ready before with Hank and Dusty, knowing what they'd already been through, but I don't think I'll ever be okay with Max dying.

I once promised him--when he was so sick before--that I'd never make him do anything he truly hated in order to keep him around, but I suspect I'll break that promise. I'd never let him truly suffer, but I may subject him to some medical things he'll hate me for.

Sunday

The appetite stimulant kicked in just before 3 this morning. He was lounging in bed near my head, quietly, until it was suddenly GET UP LADY GET UP and when I didn't get up, he bit my nose.

That certainly got my attention. Of course I got up.

He ate about half an ounce of canned food at 3:15, and then again at 7:30, 11, and 2pm. When dinner rolled around, he came to get me, not the other way around, and he ate a little more than half an ounce.

While he ate, the Spouse Thingy grilled steak, and Max ate a bite or two of the meat I shredded for him. At 9pm, he ate about 3/4 of an ounce.

All in all, he took in a bit less than half of what he usually eats in a day, but his stomach has probably shrunk a bit and not stuffing it in was a good idea.

What I don't know is if 100% of this is owed to the stimulant, and whether he'll revert to not eating once it wears off. The vet said we could get more to give him a couple times a week at home if needed.

While the relief here is palpable, we're also feeling extremely cautious. Without knowing why he suddenly stopped eating, we can't know if he just managed to catch a bug or if there's something more brewing, or it this is just the beginning of his end. So we wait and see, and hope that he's still hungry tomorrow, and that whatever is wrong is something he's recovered from.

No matter what, he's a frail old man now. He has very little muscle mass now and his fur looks a little raggedy these days. But damn, I hope we're over the hump and not just stopping to rest a little.

Doesn't matter how many times I rationalize his age and time creeping up on him; I am not ready for it, and this week proved it.

Saturday

We're on a roller coaster with him right now. After getting meds at the vet yesterday, he got some rest. There were a couple of naps during the afternoon, and last night he crawled into bed with me at 10:30, and slept on top of me until nearly six this morning, when he began to get really obnoxious--normal.

He wanted food. So I dashed out of bed and opened a can at which he turned his nose up, so my sleep-deprived brain decided that heating up his Fancy Feast might work. And it did; he took a few bites before walking away. And half an hour later he ate 2 small shrimp.

And we thought he'd turned the corner. I took him back to the vet for second doses of the nausea and stomach acid meds, as well as an appetite stimulant, hoping he would forgive me by lunch time. And he seemed to, he acted like he wanted food, but just couldn't make himself eat it.

And that's where we've been all day. Expecting the stimulant to kick in, offering him different foods, getting hopeful when he seems to want it, and then watching him sniff it and walk away. He's also restless now, which might mean a long night for both of us. I'm not locking him out of the bedroom in case he really needs something, and he's not going to let me get much sleep. Even if he manages to sleep, it will be on top of me, with his LED hallway light on, which illuminates the bedroom, too.

There's a chance he'll want food in the middle of the night, and if he does, I'll get up and offer something. If he hasn't eaten by morning, I have a fish fillet to bake and he might be tempted, and if that fails, I'll go get a fresh steak.

His lab work was good; there was nothing in it to explain any of this.

If he doesn't eat this weekend, the next step is, I think, checking his heart and his intestines to see if there's something there, but truthfully, we won't put him through stressful treatment of anything.

But that's where we're at...really hopeful that he'll be able to start eating tonight, and more than the few bites he took this morning.

Friday

Well, so much for posting every day in November. I had a choice yesterday: blog or let Max lounge on my lap. There was no question.

He was on my lap a good part of yesterday, and about half the night he was on me in bed. He doesn't seem to be sleeping much, unless he's dozing while upright and with his eyes open a bit.

I took him to the vet at 11:45 today and they drew blood, so we'll see what it says when the results are in. He was also given fluids, and shots for nausea and vomiting, so hopefully he'll feel like eating later today.

But right now? He's where I can see from the front room, on the back of the sofa, and he's finally sleeping. Hopefully that means his stomach is settled a bit, and when he wakes up he'll feel like nibbling on something.

He'll be happy to know the vet said to offer him the things he likes most, things that usually excite him. There's plenty of shrimp on hand, and some steak, as well as squirt cheese and cheese slices. If he eats some of one of those and acts like he wants more, I bought a bunch of the canned food he likes the most.

So, fingers crossed. The first thing is to get him to eat. After that, it depends on the lab work.

Wednesday

He feels like crap today. I woke him up at 7:30 this morning for breakfast, which I don't think I've ever done before. Usually he's hollering for food long before I'm out of bed, so when I went to find him I knew something was wrong, but honestly, I was just glad I woke him and that it wasn't worse.

He waited patiently while I heated up his steak so he could take his pill, but then he sniffed at it and walked away. He came back when he heard the can open, but he sat in the kitchen entryway, changed his mind, headed back to bed, and threw up halfway there. It was all stomach acid,.

Now, he ate well yesterday; everything I put in front of him, he inhaled. The Spouse Thingy grilled a fresh steak for him and he inhaled quite a bit (so did Buddah...and he's fine so I don't think that's Max's problem. The Spouse Thingy had 3 bites and he's fine, too.) But other than licking the surface of his night time snack--brought to him because I didn't think he would come into the kitchen--all he's had today is water.

He looks groggy and he's quiet. I haven't heard a single meow from him today. He sat on my lap for a while tonight, but only for half an hour or so, and didn't stay to watch the episode of Doctor Who we recorded on Sunday. Usually when he sits on my lap, he stays for as long as I'll let him; his getting off is not typical.

I'm hoping it's just a bad day. He's old, he's allowed. But this looks too much like it did when he was so sick just before he turned 4, but this time he doesn't have the reserves to handle not eating for a week.

I know what's coming sooner rather than later, and I'm bracing myself for it. I also think it's only fair to warn people that, even if this is just a bad day, that he's on a definite decline.

And please, no "Oh Max will live until he's 20. Max is tough, a survivor." I don't want him to live that long if he's miserable. And he's 17.5, if he's ready to rest, he's earned that right.

Tuesday

A week or so ago, I went to Starbucks and scored the second best table, right next to a set of low lounge chairs. Those chairs are fine if you want to sit and read while sipping your beverage of choice, or for gabbing with friends, but definitely not for writing. I've done it before when all the tables were taken, but I avoid it.

Lookit that, a tangent already.

Anyway, when I get a table near the lounge type chairs, groups of people inevitably plop down there and start talking, often loudly. And I don't really mind, because it's a public place and if quiet was my primary need, I'd stay home and work in my very nice home office. It rarely bothers me; conversation is like a white noise, other than those who choose to TALK LIKE EVERYONE NEEDS TO HEAR, or when something catches my attention and I find myself eavesdropping.

On that day, a group of 3 12-13 year old boys sat down...and one of them hesitated, telling his friends as he nodded in my direction, "She's doing something. We should sit somewhere else."

I seriously appreciated his consideration (and told him they wouldn't bother me...and they didn't.)

Today I went over to get some work done while the Spouse Thingy awaited delivery on a refrigerator (--groan$$$groan--) and wound up at a lesser table across the store, right next to two 12-ish year old girls. They had phones in hand and were playing some game against each other, giggling, talking fast in the way only 12 year old girls can.

They were there first. No problem. After half an hour one of them wanted to show the other a video on her phone...and her friend declined. "We don't have earphones and people are working here."

No complaint from her friend.

Flip everything over.

Sunday I scored my favorite table. I can see the entire store from there, no one can sit behind me, and there's no glare from windows. I'd been working for about an hour when an older couple came in. He walked in a microshuffle, slightly hunched over. They ordered their coffee and walked very slowly to the long table and sat on the far end, where ideally I wouldn't hear a thing from them.

But the old guy wanted to add something to his coffee, so he removed the lid and headed for the condiment stand, step after tiny step. The coffee was full--and very hot--and he was unsteady, so the inevitable happened: it spilled over onto his hand.

I understood the "Ow!" I understood the first "Godammit!" But he totally lost me when he continued on, spilling and shouting expletives.

I might have gotten up and offered to help, but...old dude probably would have chucked the cup at me.

I looked at his wife; she stared out the window, either oblivious or trying hard to not react. The top to his cup was on the table in front of her, the top that if he had left it on would have prevented the spillage and burn, but perhaps not the loud swearing. He kept it up even after he sat down, not giving a damn that there were other people around him, not caring that he was literally startling people with every bark of his expletives.

Don't tell me kids today are horrible little shits who need a good paddling. By far, the kids I encounter there are more considerate and are quick to apologize if they think they've crossed a line. I see more supposed adults throwing temper tantrums than I do kids. And that's pretty freaking backwards; I have no expectations of young teens being all the quiet. It's almost embarrassing to witness grown men and women go bat crap crazy in public.

Those FB memes that circulate every week, telling people to like and share if they got spanked as a kid and think today's kids are snotty and need a good ass kicking? No, no, they do not, but the adults sharing that dreck just might.

Oh and a total aside: you can ask for your smaller drink in a larger cup at Starbucks, and reduce the risk of spilling. If you get a grande, ask for it in a venti cup. It won't be full, which is ideal, whether your issue is tremors or your gait causes your beverage to slosh, or if you have difficulty removing those lids. The more you know...

Saturday

I have technically won NaNoWriMo for this year. I broke 50,000 words, on track to hit at least 80,000 by the end of the month.

80,000 is a novel.

This is not impressive, because I tend to write a lot more than that in a month; usually it's spread out over multiple projects. Aside from daily blogging, this manuscript is the only thing I've been working on this month, so theoretically I should be damn near done.

Not even close.

I don't want it to suck, so I'm taking my time.

Spoiler: it might suck anyway.

That's why God invented rewrites. And editors. And more rewrites. And booze.

Friday

If I hadn't taken this year off, right now I would be sound asleep after walking (hopefully) 20+ miles. And I have to admit, I'm mentally itchy about not being in San Diego with the awesome people, but the itchiness was soothed a bit today after learning that Komen changed the route of the walk to cut down on the amount of alcohol walkers were getting from well-intended supporters.

Like, what's the point if I can't get a shot of Fireball every other mile? ;)

The Spouse Thingy and I will probably be there next year, though he's leaning towards joining the medical crew and I dunno what I want to do. I like the idea of taking my bike down there to do road crew, but the odds of getting onto that crew are pretty slim.

Maybe I'll take the bike anyway and ride around with a giant bottle of Fireball on the back, medicating walkers as needed.

You know, strictly for medicinal purposes.

Surely the cops that ride along the walkers won't care.

Sure.

Also, if I were there right now, my eyes wouldn't be itching like crazy...I stayed inside today but I'm feeling the smoke anyway.

Thursday

It's not cold here yet, but this guy loves the fireplace, so the Spouse Thingy fired it up just for him tonight.

Granted, if we had a wood fireplace, there's no way in hell we'd have a fire in it right now. The air quality is horrific, bad enough that even as far away from the fire as we are, schools are closed and it's not a great idea to be outside for much of anything.

He might be doubly happy...that bed--and the carpet and floor all around it--is covered in catnip. I'd vacuum, but...eh...might as well let the cats roll around on it.

Monday

All right, so the Spouse Thingy and I pick a series every now and then to watch together. Every Monday is Doctor Who...because the day and time it airs doesn't work for, plus with Amazon Prime we can skip all the commercials.

We've also been watching the new Sabrina series on Netflix, and it is definitely not your children's Sabrina the Teenaged Witch. It's dark, it's borderline horror (maybe more than borderline...we're not done yet) and I have a feeling Sale is going to be a total badass.

We're only 4 episodes in, and it's entertaining enough to keep watching, but damn do I have some issues with it.

A lot of the characters are stereotypical tropes: the self-entitled, abusive foot ball team, an LGBTQ friend who is reduced to literally being nothing more than their identity, the generic white heroine who rides on on her shiny white horse to defend the misunderstood and mistreated. The teenagers are all 15 going on 40, and don't really act teenagery--except for the protagonist mooning over potentially having to switch schools and leave her boyfriend behind.

And the biggest trope of all: witches be bad, y'all. They get their magic via Satan worship. And of course Sabrina doesn't want any part of that.

I'll watch the entire season, because it's good enough to want to see how it goes, but I have a feeling my issues with it are just going to multiply.

Sunday

This is the typical view I get if I turn to my left while working at my desk.

He sits and stares, and every other minute or so he taps on my arm to remind me that he's there and he wants something.

He also sits on the arm of my chair in the living room and does the same thing, but it's a little less creepy when he's on the desk.

It used to irritate me when he'd hang on me like a needy toddler, but these days I take it as a good sign. He's here, he's active, he's annoying. Just as it should be.

Old men get to be annoying.

His age is showing. He's losing weight. He has times when he sits there and stares off into nothing, like he's listening for something. He twitches oddly sometimes. But mostly, he's his annoying self.

This is him just 30 seconds ago.

Bright eyed, alert, wanting me to get off my asterisk and open a can. He'll probably only eat half, but he had several steak bites two hours ago, so that's fine.

I catch some good-natured chit every now and then for how much we spoil him, but really...when you're pushing 100, as he is, you should get most of what you want. And right now what he seems to want is in the kitchen, and I'm damn well getting it for him.

Saturday

January of this year in the Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney...class on display.

It's kind of a tradition, me flipping the Spouse Thingy off during dinner at RFC, usually the first or second night at Disneyland. At the time, we didn't know the restaurant was slated to close to make way for a new hotel, although I don't know if it would have made a difference in how many times we went there. We had dinner there on the first night and went back the seconds for drinks, which filled me with a gallon of regret. The Blue Hawaiians were good, but I kinda forgot I can't have anything pineapple.

It's closed down now...and the plans for the hotel were scrapped. I'd be surprised if Disney can get it back; they managed to get the Earl of Sandwich back, but if rumors are correct, EoS hadn't been gutted yet and RFC has.

Granted, to food was not spectacular. It was kind of cheesy. But we still liked it, and now I don't know where we'll go so I can flip him off the next time we're there.

Friday

Nearly every day since we moved the books cases into my office, he's taken 2-3 naps up there, curled up where he can't be seen.

Every day, too, when I open a can of cat food at 11 a.m., he gets up, stretches, and then stares at the cat tree placed right next to his giant blue bed. He wants to jump down, and a year ago he probably would have. But now he thinks about it, realizes it's not a good idea, and takes the long was across the four tall bookcases to the shorter, staircase-stagger cases in front of the window, he walks across my printer and then my desk, and waits there for me to come pick him up and carry him to his food.

He can make the jump from the desk to the floor easily still, but why? He knows I'll come get him. It's one of the few times I can pick him up and not worry that he'll bite me. I carry him a few feet into the kitchen, and take the opportunity to drop a few kisses on the top of his head, because that's the only way I'll ever really be able to.

Tonight when it was snack time, he waited on the desk, and I came to get him as usual, and three steps into the kitchen he pressed his head against my face.

Wednesday

One of my other favorites says Introverts Unite. Separately. In Our Own Homes. Again, lots of truth there.

One of my friends thinks I'm an ambivert, and that might have been, way back when he knew a much, much younger me. But the truth now is that I am introverted and socially awkward, and I suspect it's the result of so many years of moving around and leaving friends behind, landing in places where I just didn't know anyone and when I did meet people, we didn't click.

Face it, I'm fairly liberal and wound up in some very conservative places.

After we left Texas--where I had martial arts as my main social outlet--I found it more and more difficult to connect with people unless it was online. In Illinois, I met, literally, no one with whom I had anything more in common than a couple of semesters at the local college. In North Dakota, we had a few friends, thanks to bowling, but there wasn't really any socializing outside that.

Ohio was a bright spot; we lived on a great street with terrific people, and spent a lot of time with them.

But that was it. We left there 15 years ago when the Spouse Thingy retired. My social life since then has been limited to online, except for one local friend who better die before dumping my ass.

This sounds whiny, but it's not meant to be.

It's really meant as more of an explanation.

I am perfectly comfortable with my introversion 99% of the time. I have a lot of friends, truly, but thanks to military life, they're scattered across the country. Or I met them through Max's blog. Or we connected way back when Prodigy was a thing and there was an active martial arts board. Some of my oldest friends--from when I was a kid--are still friends and we talk a lot, but they're way over there and I'm way over here.

There is a price to be paid for that kind of a social life.

Over time, with distance and habit, a person can lose their social skills. They forget how to engage in spontaneous small talk. There is no text-lag buffer, no taking time to edit thoughts before letting them fly. When you're conversing in person, you kinda have to talk. Like, right then.

So, sure, over the years I have become painfully socially awkward, and more of an introvert than I am an ambivert.

The topic came up recently when I was talking to a long time friend, who poked at me when she said she might be out this way and I reminded her I didn't have a guest room. I do have an inflatable mattress, and I might have a pump for it, so there was always a chance to bunk in the room where the treadmill and rowing machine live, and where Buddah and Max have barfed on the carpet approximately 4,967 times.

She declined.

And then she poked at me a little more. She wouldn't do that to me, because it would make me panic. When I denied that, she point-blank asked when the last time I had a guest was.

Um. Maybe in Ohio...? And before that, maybe when the Boy was 2?

"And if I drop in on your down time at the Pub Panel? With my entire brood?" I think that's when I told her to shut the fark up. She laughed at me again, and promised it would never happen. Too many new people at once. Too many people period. I don't do that well (Oddly, I never had those issues on the 3 Day. No clue why.)

More truth: yeah, we don't entertain at home. I have no idea HOW to entertain at home. You come over, I don't know what to do with you. I suck at small talk. If you're a talker, it works better (though not if you talk and talk and talk and talk and don't let anyone else get a word it...) because I feel like I'm more of a listener (delusional, perhaps) but really, no clue how to really socialize anymore. I'm not a decent cook, so you're probably not getting dinner here, and even if I were a decent cook...yeah, really never done that, so you're probably not going to have a great time.

Now, oddly, drop me into a party where I know a couple people, I'm okay. But you need to be okay with me sitting back and watching and listening, because I tend to not approach anyone and I still suck at small talk. It might look like I'm miserable and not having any fun, when the truth is I'm having a great time. But I avoid that, because it makes other people uncomfortable. Why is she just sitting there? Why isn't she talking? Is she just rude or what?

The weird, hard left turn: if I do the InDesign instruction at the Pub Panel, I won't have a problem with that. When I'm prepared, I can talk in front of a large group. If someone needs help with something, I can do that.

Hell, if you're a total stranger out in the wild and something's wrong, chances are I'll stop to help. I had zero issues stopping my car a few weeks ago to help an Asian guy in an Old Sac parking garage who couldn't figure out the parking exit payment. Neither of us understood a word the other was saying, but we figured it out. Never occurred to me to do anything other than solve the problem.

But that wasn't social.

I'll never see that guy again. Three or four minutes, done.

So, really, that's it. Now you know why you're probably not staying at my house on the cat-barf carpet, and why I seemed rude the last time you saw me, and why I'm pretty okay with being an introvert. It's not you. It's just how I am.

Tuesday

I am feeling 62 kinds of =blech= today thanks to a headache that has all the feelings of an oncoming head cold. Last night I felt a little queasy, so I was pretty sure something was brewing...by tomorrow I'll probably want to spend the day in bed begging for new sinuses and an embarrassing amount of chocolate that I won't be able to taste.

But. How icky I felt didn't really matter, because there was one thing that had to get done today.

Voting.

There aren't really any reasons not to, people. Unless you're laid up in the hospital, there was an emergency, or you're genuinely affected by the current wave of active voter suppression happening in the U.S. right now, whatever comes out of your mouth about not bothering is an excuse, not a reason.

Just get it done.

It's painless. It's worth the wait in line. And when you're done, you get a free sticker.

Monday

I spend a lot of time in Starbucks. I have a favorite table, some of the baristas know what I'm going to order before I open my mouth, and I recognize a lot of the regulars. I spend enough that I get a hell of a lot of freebies loaded onto my shiny gold Starbucks card, and I have been known to participate in a star dash or two or twenty.

I don't drink coffee, but I dig their tea and once in a while a Frappucino (with as little roast base as I can get, because I just never learned to like coffee.) (Also, they get a wee bit upset if you order a Frappe. That's McD's.)(Also also, learn the sizes there. It's not cute to refuse to say you want a tall, grande, venti, or trenta. No one cares if you hate the way they do it. Just make their job easier and do it the way their system is laid out. Otherwise you're gonna want a small and you're gonna get a grande.)

Yesterday Starbucks across the U.S. had a promotion: get a free red cup while supplies last, and until the end of the holidays, if you order a holiday drink after 2pm, you get 50 cents off.

People were lined up at opening, waiting to get their free red cup. Some stores received as few as 20 cups, based on (as far as I can tell) their typical sales patterns. Some got 50 or more. But within half an hour of opening, all the free cups had been given out.

Now, most people would have shrugged it off and said that it sucked, but, whatever.

I don't know what happened at the Starbucks I go to, because there's no way I'm getting there at opening. They open in the freaking middle of the night, when I'm usually offering the sleep fairy nasty things to come over and just do me. But as I surfed around online last night and read posts from the poor baristas who had to work during the cup give-away, way too many people lost their shit when they didn't get a free cup.

We're not talking someone snapping at the poor kid at the cash register and blaming him or her. We're talking full on, meltdown temper tantrums of the unholy terror toddler scale.

One woman posted that there was a meltdown so spectacular at her store that other people in line chipped in to buy the guy a $2.50 red cup that would get him the same deal. A grown-assed man, screaming and yelling so badly that people chipped in cash to shut him the hell up and spare the barista any further abuse.

Over a cup.

A cup that, when the free ones were gone, were available for purchase for $2.50. Any real Starbucks customer realizes the potential for savings there. Five purchases and you've covered the cost. From then out, that 50 cent discount is all yours.

And then came this morning, when a bunch of the people who scored their free red cup wandered into their local Starbucks and demanded their 50 cents off...and threw tantrums because the deal is for after 2pm, not all day. And only for holiday themed drinks.

It was all right there in black and white for anyone to read.

"But y'all can't expect us to read that whole thing." Seriously, that was said, according to one tired barista.

Imagine the mindset of someone who can't be bothered to read literally two sentences. Or those who do and don't grasp that 2pm MEANS 2 pm and not before. Or someone who doesn't get what they want and screams until they damn near have a stroke.

And the thing that keeps crossing my mind: tomorrow the U.S. has midterm elections, and these people probably vote.

Sunday

Saturday

I love Christmas. No secret there. I look forward to putting up the Whovimas tree and the TARDIS lights around the fireplace, and I love going around and seeing other peoples' yard decorations. I enjoy shopping for gifts, when I'm kind of -meh- about shopping any other time. I sing along to Christmas songs and every year Feliz Navidad gets stuck in my head for a least a week.

But peoples...it's barely November.

I went over to Starbucks to get a little writing done, as I do most weekends, and they were already playing Christmas music. No, no, no, no, no. That chit needs to wait until Thanksgiving. I mean, start it ON Thanksgiving Day, like 6-8 pm after people have had dinner and are in a food coma, dreading the cleaning of the kitchen. Start it then and play it until New Year's Eve.

But not early November.

This early, it feels like punishment.

I got little work done in the 90 minutes I sat there. I finally gave up just as non-holiday music began pouring out of the speaker overhead, and headed for Walmart to pick something up for dinner.

Walmart felt like a relief.

That's just not right.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

A writer's group I am a member of holds a "workshop" every year to cover issues in independent publishing. I put that in quotes because historically, little work gets done. The first three years it was held at Disneyland, and you can imagine how that went. The last two years it's been in Las Vegas (I did not go) and I understand it's been even less productive.

The last year it was at the Disneyland Hotel, on the night before the official start, a bunch of the attendees got together at the Rainforest Cafe, before I got there, there was drinking, there were words, and there was a bar fight.

It's the one thing I kinda wished I'd been there for.

The upcoming Indie Pub Panel will be, the organizer swear, vastly different. Individual panels will be structured. There will be an additional fee for each panel, the idea being that if people pay for it, they'll show up and do the work. There will be a dress code. It will be professional dammit.

It's being held at Disneyland again.

The person whose behavior started the bar fight was not, as promised, banned, and she'll be there again, her racist and homophobic rants surely on display. She's terrified of me for some inexplicable reason. I've never been mean to her. I've answered questions when she's directed them at me, and I've been polite.

I mean, I know what it is. She's got a pre-formed opinion about anyone with tattoos, and that I've had neon pink hair for every panel I've signed up for doesn't help.

All year, she's clamored for a panel that will teach indie publishers how to format for print using Adobe InDesign. She'll pay good money for that, because she's tired of paying other people to format her manuscripts, and there are always errors in them.

Guess who's been asked to head a panel tentatively titled: Formatting for Print with InDesign Made Super Simple?

Guess who agreed to do it?

Bets are now being taken (for real) on how quickly she asks for a refund.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

I have the TV on for noise and Lottery Dream Home is playing on HGTV. It reminds me, I have a lottery ticket in my wallet I never checked. Granted, I know I didn't win the big one because 2 other people did, but there's a tiny, tiny chance I hit for something smaller. I should go check.

Friday

With every manuscript, there are things that make me laugh out loud, even though I know they might not make it into the final draft. A lot of my favorite things wind up deleted...with the Wick After Dark books, sooo much got cut because it was all, frankly, way too dirty to stay in a book that wasn't erotica.

But it's the things that amuse me that get cut that I mourn.

At 3 am, this chit's funny.

With 3 Lemon Drops and 2 shots of Fireball, it's hysterical.

Sober...eh...it's an old, tired joke, but since it's coming out of a 3 year old, it just might make the cut.

Thursday

♦ I am so tired of political ads. So many packed into so little time, one right after the other, followed by 4 more...and I don't care what side they're on, they're all either lying or giving a minuscule sliver of truth taken totally out of context. Tuesday can't get here fast enough to that they're over.

♦ And in that vein.... If you're running for office and 95% of your commercial is dedicated to telling me everything your opponent is doing wrong, will do wrong, how stupid there are, you have already lost my vote. All that tells me is that your platform is not string enough to support the weight of your convictions, and you don't have the stones for the job.

♦ There are a couple of ad campaigns that drive me so nuts that I'm glad they're running for something in Sacramento and not here, because both major party candidates can't seem to do anything but whine and finger-point.

♦ I don't vote a straight-party ticket, so that wouldn't solve my being pissed off issues. I vote for the candidate I think will do the job the best, and there's one candidate running locally who is a registered Republican who has my vote. Surprise.

♦ NaNoWriMo is underway, and I'm off to a decent start. 4,000+ words, so only 46,000 to go.

Favorite line from today

♦ We officially can no longer say the word "hungry" out loud because for the last million years we've asked the cats, "Are you hungry?" right before going into the kitchen to feed them. Max has known from the start what it means, but Buddah finally understands it, so now when he hears it he expects something. And he can whine like a two-year-old at ear splitting decibels until he gets what he wants.

♦ There's a farking annoying fly in the house, and both cats just watch it go by. Eat the damn fly, furball.

♦ That damned fly is going to wind up in the bedroom 5 seconds before I go to bed, and it'll spend the rest of the night buzz-bombing my head.

Wednesday

Ok, so I'm not doing the 3 Day this year. Too many other things popped up and there was no way to train and raise funds, so maybe next year. This means (unless we suddenly decide to go somewhere) I'll be home all month.

So. I'm definitely doing NaNoWriMo again this year, even though it feels kinda like cheating. 50,000 words in a month is about a third of what I normally write, but what the hell. I've got a book to write, so I might as well get part of the vomit draft done during November. The story has taken rough shape in my brain, but I don't have an outline or plethora of notes, so I'll mostly be winging it.

This should be fun.

Also, right now, I'm a little bit drunk and I'm trying to catch typos as they occur, but if I miss them...that's why.

I may also attempt NaNoBlogMo. That's the one thing that super suffers when I'm on a writing tear--I get the writing I need to get done, but not much more--but the blog languishes Posts might be short, but I'm gonna try.

Ohhhh...and a few people have expressed concern that the Wick Chronicles were over with "Jump," but I promise they are not. Jump ended the way it did because I wanted to move it forward a few years, but there's more of their story to tell. Lots more.

I'm sitting in Starbucks, scratching out the very beginnings of a story. It's been quiet in here; I got my favorite table and decided that I'm camping out here the rest of the day to enjoy it. Other people have come and gone, but twenty minutes ago a couple sat down at the table next to me and two minutes into their conversation I'm jerked back to eight years old.

No one will like you if you're fat.

They're discussing, I assume, their child. Why won't she conform to normal? She's ten years old already; she should have outgrown the whole tomboy phase by now. And honestly, if she gains any more weight, her social life will end.

Boys don't like girls who act like boys.

They're not being snotty or condescending; they're genuinely concerned. Their daughter is on the cusp of being--they assume--a social outcast. Puberty is looming; she's rapidly approaching the age where appearance matters to her peers. She hates dresses. She wants to play basketball and take karate lessons. If she keeps going in that direction, she's going to be friendless and miserable, and the idea breaks their hearts.

You're going to wear a dress to school every morning. I'm tired of you looking like that.

Her pediatrician says she's on the high end of the scale, but not overweight, not yet. But Mom can see it coming. And when it happens--not if--she'll be miserable. Kids are just mean little things. And how can she get on the basketball team? She's not quick and not athletic at all. She'll wind up riding the bench and watching as the sport she wants to participate in goes on without her. Those kids will mock her.

You're not a boy. Stop acting like it already.

And the karate? She'll last a week at the most. How many little girls really want to fight little boys all the time? How will she learn dignity and grace doing something like that? Dad thinks he can teach her to defend herself, but will it even matter? If she doesn't change, she's not going to wind up in the positions where boys will take advantage of her. He certainly wouldn't have looked at her twice when he was young.

You'll never have a boyfriend if you don't do things to make yourself pretty.

Mom doesn't know what to do. Their daughter is stubborn; they can keep her out of basketball and karate, but they can't force her into doing something to make herself look better. They can stop a few things in their tracks; she wanted leggings to play in because her friends all have them, but God only knows how much teasing that would have invited, a girl like her in skin tight things.

Fat girls aren't pretty. That's just how it is. If you want friends, you'll do something about it.

I wanted them to look over at me. See the horror on my face. I wanted to open my mouth and warn them: keep it up, keep telling her she's less than you want her to be. Keep picking at her clothes and her weight and her interests; keep doing that, if in five years you want a teenager who doesn't trust you; if in twenty years you want those words to echo in her head like a scream in the night; if in thirty years you want those feelings to stab her in the heart.

Keep thinking along those lines and say something, because she'll hear you and she'll swallow it whole, and for the rest of her life she'll be embarrassed for the people who do like her, who love her, who cherish her, and she'll never quite feel like she deserves it.

Keep talking. Do it here, and maybe, hopefully, you'll hear yourselves before she does.

Saturday

Okay, so the whole rejoining of the gym thing just didn't work. I like the idea of swimming and when I'm in the pool I love swimming, but my shoulders do not enjoy it as much, and it's an outdoor pool heading into cooler weather. Also, their heater isn't being cooperative and I don't want nipples any pointier than they already are.

The big thing...when presented with a choice--go to the gym or take the bike out--I take the bike. And because the temps are cooling down, it means we can go on long rides without worrying that it's going to get too hot, and we don't have to get out the door at Stupid O'Clock to beat the heat. So, the gym membership is on hold until spring, and I'm gonna ride the snot out of my bike.

Not swimming really brings me to this.

The hair.

It's been un-dyed primarily because I wasn't going to show up to my son's wedding with neon pink--or blue or red or purple--hair. Even though she never asked it of me, I promised the bride, no pink hair. And I joked that the day after, it was going pink, but...

Hair dye and swimming don't go well together. So I didn't.

Now that I can, I'm waffling on it. If I dye it, I'll probably keep dying it until March, when my head will get shaved for St. Baldrick's (oh hell yes I'm doing it again. I hate being bald, but it's for kids.)

My hair is thinning. I don't think the pre-dye bleaching is helping that.

But I dig the pink. Yet I'd also like to go purple.

This is how difficult my life is, guys. Do I dye my hair or act my age and not? You know, the super hard choices.

In other news, Max has been pre-gaming for tomorrow, when the new Doctor Who season starts. Tomorrow is a holiday at Casa de Thumper, and our asterisks are going to be planted in front of the TV starting at 9:30 or thereabouts. In the morning. Because they decided to have a global broadcast and evening in London is morning here, so...breakfast, then Who.

Thursday

That’s how many years it’s been since I was fifteen years old. October 2, 1976. My own personal #metoo moment, the details of which don’t need to be picked through here. I’ve written about it once before, a very short chapter in a very short book, with some of the specifics changed because the truth wouldn’t worm out of my brain and onto paper. The ugliness of it wouldn't come out.

It still won’t. And please don’t ask me to.

Right now, on a dozen TV stations I am not watching—because the stress of it is too much, because half a minute of it made me so anxious I wanted to punch the TV—a woman is baring her pain for the world to see. Christine Blasey Ford is sitting in front of a massive panel made up of mostly white men and she’s trying to get them to listen, and to take seriously something far too many women know won’t happen.

She doesn’t want to be there. Who would? But she’s stepping up and allowing the world a fleeting glimpse of her internal terror, because it’s that important.

I have zero faith in the people who should be taking seriously every word that comes out of her mouth. They don’t care. They’re perfectly willing to appoint to the Supreme Court of the United States a man with more than one accusation against him rather than risk waiting until after the elections this year. God forbid they have to go with a more moderate candidate later because of what might happen in the mid-term elections. They toss around terms like “he said/she said” and brush off the notion that it even matters. They denied Garland his due hearing when appointed by Obama because of pettiness, and are now frothing at the mouth because the man they want has a roadblock in front of him.

No, I don’t think they care.

This isn’t a case of hiring some sketchy twenty-year-old to handle inter-office mail delivery, someone who can easily be fired if it turns out he really does have some noisy skeletons in his closet. This is someone who will sit on the highest court in this country, with the ability to affect change for decades to come. Any accusation should be taken seriously. Anything remotely credible should be examined until there’s no doubt about the outcome. That seat is far too important to rush, far too important to place the wishes of one political party over the other.

Yes, a “he said/she said” incident, when it comes to a Supreme Court appointee, should be taken seriously. And it goes beyond that: one accusation could be construed as he said/she said. Two accusations is enough that those in charge should listen quite a bit more carefully. Three establishes a pattern of behavior that cannot be overlooked. And four? Holy hell.

Yes, there are four. And still, these people who supposedly have the best interests of the country at heart are willing to barrel over everything and rush to appoint their candidate, for no apparent reason other than they want to place party over country—something they damn well admitted to in the past—and care little about the truth.

They are willing to elevate a rapist to the Supreme Court of the United States rather than risk waiting for a more suitable, and possibly moderate, candidate.

Come on. Let that sink in. They are willing to appoint a rapist.

“But he hasn’t been found guilty of anything!” No, he hasn’t. That doesn’t change that the people who are rushing this through don’t care about the facts. They don’t care if he’s guilty or not. They care about appointing their choice to the seat rather than waiting for the facts. They’ll appoint him knowing there’s a good chance that he did, in fact, assault Dr. Ford when he was seventeen. He could admit to them behind closed doors that he did everything he’s accused of, and more, and they’ll still do everything they can to get him into that seat.

No, it doesn’t matter that Ford didn’t report it then. Don’t judge her for not having it in her to go through the ringer of judgment when she, too, was just a teenager. Don’t judge her for being terrified of having to shoulder the blame—something many of us understood far too well in our teen years, that the victim was almost always blamed for something over which they had zero control—and don’t brush it off as boys being boys.

Take a look at your sons. If you’re willing to brush off sexual assault as being no big deal, that it’s something boys just do, consider what you’re teaching them. Then take a look at your daughters, because they’re the ones at risk. Do you really think it’s okay for someone to molest, assault, rape, touch, or torment them for no reason other than “Well, you know, boys will be boys.”

Retire the tired tropes, the lame excuses, and the prejudice against the victims of assault.

Statistically, the number of false accusations in sexual assault cases are so low as to be negligible. Statistically, too, the number of convictions are so low as to be a reason why reporting an assault feels like a waste of time.

Statistically, when a woman levels a charge, you can be pretty sure she’s not lying.

There is literally nothing to be gained from accusing someone of sexual assault, and everything to be lost. When Dr. Ford came forward, she endured death threats serious enough that she had to leave her own home, and that’s not going to end when today’s hearing does. She offered up her safety and sanity and will not benefit from this at all.

Brett Kavanaugh, on the other hand, will get a pat on the back and an “atta boy” from people who believe he’s guilty of the charge, but don’t think that something he did as a teenager should matter. He’ll go on living his life, likely as a Supreme Court Justice.

Wednesday

No wedding pictures yet (let's give them time to share first...) but there is this:

The moment during the rehearsal when the Boy realized I was taking a picture.

The venue was stunningly beautiful. Just a hint of how amazing:

And that is just a tiny taste... it went on and on, one of the nicest places I've ever seen. And the wedding was absolutely beautiful, and yes, I got a little teary-eyed. Kinda hard not to when you see your kid in his happiest-ever moments and know that he truly found The One.

Oh, and the view from our hotel room...

I wasn't thrilled when I found out we were on the 3rd story and there was no elevator, but the stairs didn't give me as many problems as usual, and we had a balcony...with this to look down on. I'd be quite happy to stay there again sometime.

Thursday

On Sunday, they're saying I Do. The Boy and his Much Better Half, who might be the most so-right couple I know, the two who always pop into my head when I hear Ed Sheeran's Perfect come on the radio. I can't begin to tell you how much I love these two, and how grateful I am that she came into his life. He's always been a good man, but damn, y'all, with her he's a good man, and what more could a mother want for her son?

I don't think that I've ever looked forward to something as much as I have this wedding, other than, perhaps, his birth.

And I swear, if anyone stands up to object, I'll get off my asterisk and threaten to cut a beeyotch.

Tuesday

Monday

The last time I had a mango was in 2002. I remember this, because the morning after I’d eaten one, the Spouse Thingy dragged me to the ER because I woke up with my face roughly the size of a basketball, which was a bit uncomfortable and quite disconcerting for him. The consensus in the ER was that I had an allergic reaction, and the mango was the most likely culprit: quit eating mangoes, because the next time the reaction might be quite a bit more severe.

Now, I might not be truly allergic to mango. Not long before I ate that fateful fruit, I was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor which had given me a nice, life-long case of diabetes insipidus, and I’d started taking DDAVP for it. One squirt in each nostril, twice a day.

Turns out I only needed one squirt once a day, before bed. And later, one pill once a day, before bed, and if I have breakthrough the next day, half of another pill. When the meds work too well, I bloat. And often, I feel that bloating in my face before I feel it anywhere else. So my basketball face might have been because of too much DDAVP and not the mango.

But there’s a risk in testing that theory out, and I’m not sure that I want to.

I also want kiwi. I freaking love kiwi. Kiwi does not, however, love me back. The last time I had kiwi was somewhere around 1996. It was only the second time I had it, just enough to know I really, really liked it. The first time, I felt a tingling in my jaw, but surely that was because it was sour. The next time, my mouth itched and my throat felt kind of thick.

So. No more kiwi for me for sure. But I really want one.

I also want pineapple. Pineapple to me is like candy. It’s sweet and wonderful, and I could eat it every freaking day.

Pineapple, on the other hand, does not like me. One bite, and it feels like my stomach is trying to digest itself. The pain just isn’t worth it.

There are a plethora of other fruits, so over the years, when the craving for mango or kiwi or pineapple hits hard, I’ve consoled myself with cherries and raspberries and oranges and pears and plums and bananas...

Yeah.

One by one, those things started hating me, too. Raspberries now cause the same pain that pineapple does. Oranges and other citrus fruit come close. Cherries and pears and plums and bananas cause other discomfort, badly enough that I avoid them now. Well, except bananas. If I spread out the eating of those, every other day, it minimizes the issues.

I’m pretty much left with grapes and strawberries as the fruit that hasn’t attacked me.

The point?

Yeah getting old sucks. I want my damned fruit back. And knees, hips, and a back that doesn’t hurt. I want my metabolism back.

Tuesday

After battled a shoulder injury for over a year, I gave up and stopped swimming a year ago. Well, I'd really stopped swimming a year before that, I think, but tried every now and then, hoping it had healed enough. PT helped--it got me far enough along to manage day to day tasks--but swimming just hurt like hell.

I picked other things to do. Walking. I bought a spiffy neon pink bike and love the hell out of riding it. But I missed swimming, and more importantly, my back missed swimming.

We got a rowing machine to help, but it was clear pretty quickly that I needed a stronger back to be able to row without making the pain worse. So...we went back to the gym I was most comfortable at, the one with a 7 lane lap pool, a family pool, an aerobics pool, and a hot tub. The pools are outdoors which won't be ideal in winter, but the other gym, the high-end super clean we-are-important gym with the indoor pool heated to a perfect level of warm-but-not-too-warm, always made me mentally itchy and seriously uncomfortable.

I'm not sure if it was the "we're better than everyone else" or the cutting looks I got from other women, but I never wanted to go and always found excuses not to go.

I walked into the gym today, and not one mental itch. No one looked at me like I was breathing in air to which I was not entitled.

The downside... the pool was freaking cold. It took a couple laps to warm up, but once I got going it felt great. I didn't push it today, only half an hour, and my shoulder was fine.

My knee, not so much, but I'll deal with that later.

Fingers crossed I can keep this up, because swimming--as horrible as I am at it--is my favorite thing. Next to my bike. They might be tied.

Sunday

C'mon, there has to be a favorite. If the cosmos opened up and a booming voice told you to pick one to keep forever, which one would you keep and which one would you delete?

Why the hell does your brain think of these things?

I'm unemployed and only one of the kids is still at home. I was told to go amuse myself, so I'm bugging you. Pick one*.

*based on a real conversation, though not verbatim

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

I could not pick one.

Well, I could. The first series is long over with. Done. The chances of me going back to it are slim to none, not unless I have some weird vision while walking or biking again (which is how The Flipside of Here came to be.) If I'm never going to work on it again, that would have to be the one to let go.

Still. The idea of getting rid of it?

I've said before, I would really like to re-write the first in that series, and I would re-title it. The idea crosses my mind every now and then. But, it found its footing with a lot of readers and it seems like cheating. Not that I won't if I find myself with nothing else to work on someday. But probably not.

Wanting to rewrite the first book aside, the story arc is good and the characters are relatable. Each book was better than the last, and I really dug the last book. But if I had to choose, if a gun were held to my head, the Charybdis novels are the one I would let go.

Good thing I don't have to choose.

Wick is the one I would hold onto. It's been far more fun to write and the possibilities are endless. When you have a 400+ year old time traveling cat who can communicate with at least two people, every direction available is possible.

Do you want the rest of your career to be nothing but Wick?

Not necessarily, but it's not a bad place to be. There's an entire universe to explore, and I've barely scratched the surface.

Who knows, before I die, when the last book I ever write becomes available, Wick may be Ruler of All Things, the benevolent dictator of the galaxy.

Saturday

Sitting in Starbucks, trying to edit, but my brain cannot seem to focus right now, so I’m mostly people watching. So far I’ve seen one elderly nose-picker—and holy hell, yes, she ate it—one poor woman bolting for the rest room, bald guy with an eyeball tattooed on the back of his head, and I managed to upset a broflake when I bypassed the long line and mobile ordered from my table. That was nearly half an hour ago and he’s at another table, still glaring at me, probably because he didn’t think of it first.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

Because nice clothing for fat women is hard to find, I ordered, like, $1000 worth of blazers online to try on at home. I had a weirdly good time doing that but am not as excited about it all arriving because then I have to pick something. And thank you Amazon for having Prime Wearhouse, which gives you a week to decide and then only charges for what you keep. I have spent more time surfing online for nice clothes this week than I think I did for all the Christmas shopping of the last three years. I hoped I would find something spiffy and a local store would have it, but across the board I got Nope, nothing in your size, hit he gym fat ass.

Okay, so I exaggerate. But seriously, even the major stores don’t stock what few plus size things they carry in their brick and mortar stores. Checking in a 100 mile radius yielded zero things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, lose weight.

Shuddup.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

I’m in search of spiffy things because apparently this is not appropriate wedding attire. Who knew? Spouse Thingy has it easy; he’s just going to Mens’ Wearhouse and getting fit for a suit already picked out for him. I need a Drag King Wearhouse, someplace where I can go get fit for a nice suit that doesn’t look too butch, and then buy one in neon pink.

That’s not too much to ask for. Right?

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

Upset Random Dude is now on his phone, yakking, and not using his inside voice. And he’s discussing peeing. I think it’s in a medical context but I really don’t care.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

I miss swimming.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

The eighth book in the Wick series (third in this leg of it) is in the editor’s hands, and the beta readers liked it well enough, AND it’ll head to formatting as soon as the Battle axe is done telling me everything that’s wrong. That’ll be 8 books in a tiny bit over 2 years. I am normally not a fan of pumping books out that quickly, but there were hundreds of pages of notes and it was literally years in the making.

There are groups of authors who play online and sit back and discuss rapid release strategies as away to increase sales, and it works for a whole lot of people. They release a book a month, roughly, and they supposedly make money. But…yeah, I’ve read a lot of their books. And, no, I’m not selling my barely polished vomit draft to anyone.

I don’t pretend in any way, shape, or form to be a superlative writer. I write literary junk food; I know it, and I embrace it. It’s what I enjoy reading. Quick, absorbable, fun, wordy hot apple pie or triple layer chocolate cake. Pizza. It’s not perfect by any stretch. It won’t win any awards. But it’s fun as hell to write and to read, and yes, I often go for an emotional gut punch at least once in a book. But I don’t think I’ll ever be the writer why types “The End” on a first draft, typo-hunts and thinks that’s editing, and then uploads it to Amazon three weeks after the first words were written.

I break a hell of a lot of the rules, but editing isn’t one of them. I’ve had horrible editors, good editors, and outstanding editors…but I’ve had editors.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

Max and I are still mulling over starting a Patreon account. Mostly because it’s a place we could, theoretically, share work-in-progress and offer sneak peaks and have things somewhat protected. Also…we can blog there and say what we really think. LOL

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

There’s a couple sitting not far from me, sharing a tablet to read from. She’s standing behind him, not sure why. I’m pretty sure she could see it if she sat next to him. But it’s kinda cute, they’re older, and she’s resting her head on the top of his head.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

All right, I’ve been here 2 hours and only worked on 6 pages. Might as well go home and give housework the same dedicated care.

2019 Charity Events

Facebook

Places To Go

A Wabbit Walking

Amazon Author Page

Doctor Who Quotes

There's something that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick.

We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?

Every time you see them happy, you remember how sad they're going to be. And it breaks your heart. Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later? And the answer is, of course, because they're going to be sad later.

The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.

Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.

If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.